Appom

My mother used to do it differently and I think its more
village style or maybe even traditional.

Appom is so delicious even for children. I have sweet memories of it, as my mom
would make for us one by one while we keep eating them.

She didn’t use rice flour for this. The raw rice is soaked for a few hours and then ground to a soft batter with fresh coconut and fenugreek. The fenugreek is supposed to have digestive properties.

But today in the modern fast world, we really want to enjoy
this appom with minimum work so I have come up with this recipe for anyone to
do it easily.

My young
daughter craved for it in London where she was studying some years back. During one of my visits there, I made
do without the appom pan. I went
to the Asian store to buy rice flour and made it successfully with using the
smallest wok that she had. One appom is never enough as once the lacy edge with
pillow soft centre is drizzled with coconut milk and sprinkled generously with
brown sugar; you are transported to literally heaven!

I was surprised because it was also a first try for me then
with rice flour and yeast.

Since then I have done several variations of the appom
recipe and hereby I am sharing one of the easiest and simplest recipe.

But of course if you do not want to go through the whole process, ready-made appom batter is found in Little India or other supermarkets. (I usually get the SUVAI brand at Mustafa–its good). Just add coconut milk and enough water, stir well and make appoms immediately.

Ingredients

½ cup cooked
plain rice

1 cup rice
flour

½ cup thick
coconut milk

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

¼ cup lukewarm
water

1 to 2 cups
water

Salt to taste

Method

Into the warm
water, add the sugar and yeast and stir quickly. Keep aside for 5 minutes.

In a blender,
add cooked rice, coconut milk and blend till smooth.

Add the rice
flour, yeast mixture, and 1 cup of water and continue to blend to a smooth
runny batter. If the batter is too thick , you can add more water. Add salt, mix and keep aside for 2
hours or even overnight to ferment.

Once you are
ready to cook the appom, get ready your appom pan, You need to brush with a
little oil or butter.

Heat it on the
stove, ladle a spoon of batter and swirl the pan (pl see video). Cover and cook
till the centre is cooked and the edges would have crisped up.

Remove and
serve with more coconut milk and brown sugar. Best eaten hot.